Fraycar's Fist

(no dust jacket) [reading copy only; front hinge weak, rear hinge starting, moderate external wear/soiling to boards, lightly bumped corners, some fading to spine cloth, etc.] Uncommon story collection by an author best known for her labor activism and journalism, both of which she drew upon for her fiction. Vorse (1874-1966) was also a successful novelist and a prolific short-story writer, publishing dozens of stories in popular (and sometimes radical) magazines of the day. (Her best-known work is probably her 1930 novel "Strike!", a fictional re-telling of the Gastonia (N.C.) textile mill strike.) The 14 stories in the present collection were all written between 1918 and 1923, which almost perfectly coincides with the period of her affair with and marriage to the radical political cartoonist (and Communist Party leader) Robert Minor (who dumped her in 1923 in favor of an old flame). The stories in this book, which had mostly been published in Harper's Magazine, although a couple, including the title story, had appeared in The Liberator, and one in McCall's. They are: "Fraycar's Fist"; "Twilight of the God" (an O. Henry Prize story in 1922); "The Girl Who Wanted a New Face"; "The Wallow of the Sea"; "The Other Room"; "The Hopper"; "The Magnificent Suarez"; "The River Road"; "A Man's Son"; "The Halfway House"; "The Promise"; "Huntington's Credit"; "Northern Lights"; and "The Red Head."